He made a scoffing sound. “I wish someone had. Then I could spend the morning breaking heads.”
“If you need to blow off some steam, you could always spar with my darling husband. Mate. You know what I mean.” Taylor made a gesture of impatience, flapping her hand. She had been human up until a couple of years ago, when she had been secretly turned. She still thought like a human a lot of the time.
“I could, but I hate to make a grown wolf cry.”
Taylor snorted. “Thank you, Grant, I just rolled my eyes back in my head so hard I checked out my own ass. If they get stuck that way, I’m sending you the bill.”
Her gaze wandered across the street, settling on a beautiful, athletic blonde wearing pink yoga pants and tank top who’d just come out of a clothing boutique. She carried an enormous glossy blue shopping bag.
“Hey, is that Mandy? What’s she doing here? She’s not back with you, is she?”
Grant stifled a growl.Count backwards from ten. Keep your fur under your skin. Thou shalt not kill thy brother’s mate.“Don’t. Start.”
“I’m not starting, I’m continuing. I’m continuing to wonder what she sees in you. Please don’t rattle off a list of your supposed attributes; I know you too well.”
Taylor waved at Mandy, who waved back and headed their way.
“Hey,chica, you’re looking gorgeous as usual,” Mandy said to Taylor, giving her a hug. “Here, let me save you some trouble. Taylor says: ‘Mandy, are you dating Grant again? Why? He’s not good enough for you!’ I say: ‘Hell no, he’s not, but he offered me a free vacation to Colorado, and a shopping spree, and also there’s a lodge full of Alphas here, so I might actually meet someone decent.’ ”
“Why are both of you pretending you can predict what I say?” Taylor complained as Grant walked off, heading for the True Brew microbrewery. They could follow him or not. He was hoping not.
Mandy gave Taylor’s arm a sympathetic pat. “Because you’re predictable. Lovable, but predictable.” They hurried to catch up with Grant.
“So we’re getting beer before noon o’ clock now?” Taylor said as Grant turned down the herringbone brick path that led to the True Brew.
Grant gave her a dirty look. “Mandy and I are getting beer before noon o’ clock. You’re going someplace where you can’t annoy me. I wonder what time the space shuttle is blasting off today.”
“Now, now, be nice to my friend,” Mandy said reprovingly. “Remember, I came here as a favor, and I like her better than you.”
Several pretty girls walking down the path towards the brewery started to move past them, then stopped and did a double-take as they openly checked Grant out.
“Omigod, omigod, aren’t youGrant Bronson?” one of them trilled, fluttering her lashes at him. “I saw you at the XXXtreme Sportsapalooza in Sweden last year. You were soooo hot!”
Grant was the public face of Bronson Sports Performance, a billion-dollar company that produced sports enhancement products that were snapped up by everyone from top athletes to gym jocks. Their products were secretly made with highly diluted werewolf blood.
When Grant wasn’t at the pack’s small, werewolf-only town in Hidden Hills, North Dakota, he was traveling the world. Taking part in extreme sports events, schmoozing with the CEOs of the companies who distributed their products, plastered all over the pages of magazines and social media. And fending off the advances of Alpha groupies desperate to be able to boast to their empty-headed friends that they’d bedded one of the Bronson brothers.
Mandy put her arm around Grant’s waist and flicked her fingers at them. “Move along, basic beeyotches. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
Grant flashed the girls a wink and a grin that was so fake and automatic, it was like flipping a switch. “Sorry, girls, got my hands full with this one.”
The girls looked disappointed as they headed through the door. As soon as they were gone, Mandy removed her arm.
Taylor stopped walking just outside the door and gave Grant a speculative glance. “I’m beginning to get an idea,” she said.
“Keep it to yourself,” he suggested, none too politely.
“By the way, weird thing happened today,” Mandy said to Grant. “You’ve never hit a woman, have you?”
“What?” Grant and Taylor said at the exact same time, exchanging glances of astonishment.
Grant shook his head. “Hell, no. I mean, trust me, I’ve been tempted…” He glanced at Taylor, who used her middle finger to adjust her sunglasses.
“This woman came up to me a little while ago while I was at the pharmacy, and said she’d seen us together yesterday. Then she asked me if you were treating me okay, and if you’d everhitme. Seriously. I laughed so hard I peed myself a little. Then I told her no, if you tried, there wouldn’t be enough of you left to sweep up with a dustpan.” That was true. Some werewolves had freak powers. Mandy’s was super-strength.
“Did you ask her why she’d ask that?” Grant could hear the edge to his voice. Sure, there were plenty of rumors that he was a bad, bad boy who left shattered hearts in his wake, and that was the way he liked it. Any woman who thought she was going to snag him as a mate and a daddy to her cubs was sadly mistaken. But why would anyone think he was enough of a cowardly little bitch to hit a woman?
“Yes, and she didn’t answer. Just asked if you were a decent person, and I said, in comparison to what? Then she left.”
